Moral of the story: Olympics are good if you're a Tory

There evidently is an Olympic omen on the right when it comes to federal elections in Canada.

The first election after the 1976 Montreal Olympics was contested May 22, 1979 when Joe Clark upset Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau as the Clark Progressive Conservatives beat the Liberals 136-114 to win a minority. The NDP, under leader Ed Broadbent, held the balance of power with 26 seats.

The 1988 Winter Olympics were held in Calgary and PC Prime Minister Brian Mulroney went to the polls on Nov. 21, 1988 in the election fought on the divisive issue of free trade with the United States. Mulroney steamrolled to a 211-seat landslide in 1984, but in 1988 won re-election with a 169-seat majority.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservatives finally got their majority in the May 2, 2011 election, winning 167 seats. Harper now has 100% of the power with 54.2% of the seats in Parliament after getting 39.6% of the votes from 61.4% of the registered voters who cast ballots. That's how the first-past-the-post system works, folks.

Now that Quebec is coloured with the orange of Jack Layton's NDP, will the Tories try to gain favour during the next four years by backing La Belle Province's bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics?

Throughout the campaign, Harper sported a black, HBC-made Team Canada jacket from the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics collection. Who can forget his all-terrain vehicle ride or his syrup-sucking? Such famous images, like these two, were featured prominently on the Conservative party's campaign website. Harper was doing his best to remind Canadians of the Games and attach himself to the 14-gold medal success of the host nation's athletes. To this day, Harper's government has still not disclosed the final bill to taxpayers for the Games.




The Vancouver Games, however, weren't the springboard to victory for two other candidates who were part of the five-ring circus last year.

Tory Gary Lunn, who was the junior minister of sport, was handily beaten by Green Party leader Elizabeth May in Saanich and the Gulf Islands. May, the Hartford, Ct.-born, former Nova Scotia candidate switched coasts and upset the smug Lunn by more than 7,000 votes (May 31,890; Lunn 24,544) to become the first elected Green in Canadian federal politics. Lunn, you may remember, made VANOC CEO John Furlong the guest of honour to open the campaign office.

In North Vancouver, ex-VANOC vice-president of strategy and partnerships Taleeb Noormohamed (17,665) came a distant second to incumbent Tory Andrew Saxton (28,996).

The Olympics, meanwhile, featured a heavy emphasis on aboriginal involvement (despite there being no full-blooded native on Team Canada). Some believe the Four Host First Nations inclusion strategy was a clever move to prevent tribes-without-treaties from resorting to roadblocks. Others said it only made sense. Could it, however, have played a small part in the election of a record seven aboriginals to Parliament?

Will the ex-VP become an MP?

This time last year, there was a lot of buzz around VANOC CEO John Furlong and whether he would stay in the public eye and run for public office. It was one-way hype.

Furlong always issued an abrupt denial when asked. What's more, his leadership of the Vancouver Olympic committee was a tiring, nearly decade-long campaign fraught with politics and economics. He once said he would have done his job with a paper bag on his head if he could have. Despite his rousing speeches and sometimes feisty answers to relentless journalists, Furlong always seemed a tad reluctant to be in the public eye.

Different story for Taleeb Noormohamed. Noormohamed, 34, is a former VANOC vice-president of strategy and partnerships who worked closely with Furlong. That's Noormohamed with Furlong pictured above at the United Nations in October 2009. The charismatic, intelligent North Shore-raised Noormohamed was born in 1976 (after the Montreal Olympics) in Ottawa and he wants to go back to the nation's capital. This time as the Member of Parliament for North Vancouver.

Noormohamed is running for the Liberal Party in the May 2 election against incumbent Conservative Andrew Saxton. It was at a Noormohamed-hosted rally for Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff that the legendary Nardwuar the Human Serviette convinced Ignatieff to do the Hip Flip. One of the best moments of the campaign, I say.

I caught up with Noormohamed on election eve.

Q: Talk about the experience of running for office in this election.

"It's been a really good opportunity to hear the issues and talk to as many people as you can. I've knocked on thousands of doors, I would hazard to guess, I would say over 4,000 doors.

Q: What have you learned about yourself and the process?

Taleeb: "It's a process that requires you to really trust in people and you have to be willing to work extremely hard. I've been knocking on doors quite literally eight hours a day. This is a team sport and so many people are doing this with you and around you.

"It's a very humbling experience, you have to really be aware of how important elections are to people and how seriously people take them. I've heard people share some amazing and very sad challenges they're facing. It really does inspire you to do this and do better for people.

"If I win, I carry this responsibility that I do keep that dialogue going not just when it's election time."


Q: What are your thoughts on the Jack Layton surge and how the campaign has evolved?

Taleeb: "It's very easy to make whatever promise you want when there is almost no chance you're going to form government.

"Mr. Ignatieff has quite literally years of the Conservatives putting out negative media, negative press, leaving Jack fairly untouched. Part of the fundamental image of Ignatieff that was created was created by the very offensive, negative media work done by the Conservatives. At some point, what Mr. Ignatieff had to say got lost in the hype around Jack…

"Mr. Ignatieff got a much rougher ride than the others did. I was surprised that the media let Harper get away with the kind of campaign that he ran, where questions didn't get answered or Conservatives didn't show up for all-candidates meetings. People didn't scrutinize as closely just the fundamental disrespect Harper had for the media in this campaign."

Meanwhile, though Furlong did not become a candidate, he did endorse Gary Lunn, the Conservative running for re-election in Saanich and the Gulf Islands. See the photo below. Lunn was the junior sport minister before and during the Vancouver Olympics. Furlong appeared at the opening of Lunn's campaign office on April 3.

VANOC needed more taxpayers' money -- including at least $74.4 million directly from the federal government -- because of the Great Recession. The Conservatives have still not disclosed the final bill to taxpayers for the Vancouver Olympics, yet Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been campaigning across the country while wearing his Team Canada jacket. At least one political blog has noticed and it even posted a gallery of Harper modelling the jacket. The Canadian Olympic Committee did not respond to my query about whether Harper signed a commercial rights agreement to use the jacket in such a way.

On May 2, voters get to decide which party forms government and, ultimately, which leader can attach himself to the Olympic rings.

Sorry Edmonton, no Expo for you.

Brace yourself. It's coming and it won't be pretty.

I'm talking about the report on how much the Government of Canada spent on the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

The Province of British Columbia and City of Vancouver have reported on how much taxpayers' dollars they spent on the Games. Ottawa has been a laggard. It disclosed the G8 and G20 summits cost almost $860 million when it made a massive Friday dump of documents in the House of Commons on Nov. 5. Those events took place in Ontario in June. The Olympics were in February and Paralympics in March. Why are the Tories sitting on the numbers? What do they have to hide?

Dumb question...

Opposition parties that pander to voters in populous Ontario screamed bloody murder at G8 and G20 costs before the riot-marred Toronto summit happened. Here's what Liberal leader Michael "Iffy" Ignatieff wrote to Auditor-General Sheila Fraser. NDP Public Safety critic Don Davies also complained. Those same opposition parties have been silent on the Olympics. Seems their leaders are too afraid to question an event that delivered Canada a record 14 gold medals, including Sidney Crosby’s golden goal heard from coast-to-coast-to-coast.

They should be ashamed. They are abrogating their duties to citizens. Patriotism is about more than waving a flag and cheering at the national winter pastime.

Why am I so sure that the costs of the 2010 Winter Games will be a shock to taxpayers?

On Nov. 22, Heritage Minister James Moore wrote to Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel to tell him that Ottawa would not fund a bid for Expo 2017. Without the $706 million needed from the federal government, the $2.3 billion exposition won’t happen.

“This amount doesn’t take into account the full costs of security for this three month event nor the full costs of the Federal Government's obligations to host an event of this size,” Moore wrote. “Costs for the Federal Government for this project could easily eclipse $1 billion, and that is a financial risk we are not prepared to take at this time.”

Mandel was understandably upset. You might say he went ballistic.

Surely if the Vancouver Olympics were as successful as the spin doctors want us to believe, then why wouldn’t Edmonton’s Expo be a wise investment? (Say this with your tongue planted in your cheek, if you know what I mean).

Moore’s ministry led the $1.25 billion federal commitment to the 2010 Winter Games. That was the total pre-Games price tag for federal taxpayers. Moore’s ministry will eventually have to deliver the bad news to Canadians.

The recession-rocked Vancouver 2010 Games were the 21st century’s answer to Montreal 1976. Hope you enjoyed the party. You paid dearly for it.


If you have any doubt about the federal government's reluctance to talk about how much it spent on the 2010 Winter Olympics, read the following.

It's why I award the federal Conservatives a gold medal in the uniquely Canadian sport of freestyle, long-track evasiveness. Spokesthingys for both Heritage Minister Moore and Junior Sport Minister Gary Lunn were equally unhelpful in fulfilling my most recent request.

Enjoy this email string.

From: "Bob Mackin" [Bob.Mackin@sunmedia.ca]
 
Sent: 11/17/2010 10:37 AM EST
 
To: Vanessa Schneider
 
Subject: media request

Hello,

Is Minister Lunn  available today for a short phone interview to talk about the delay in publication of the post-Games financial report by VANOC and to discuss when the post-Games report on federal investments in the Olympics and Paralympics will be published?

Sincerely,

Bob Mackin



From vanessa.schneider@pch.gc.ca
Subject: Re: media request
Date: November 17, 2010 7:47:26 AM PST
To: Bob Mackin

Hi Bob,


I understand that you have also contacted the department in this regard. They will provide the answers to your questions.


Thanks!

Vanessa



Vanessa Schneider 

Directrice des communications/Director of Communications

Cabinet de l'Honorable Gary Lunn/Office of the Honourable Gary Lunn


From: "Bob Mackin"
Date: November 17, 2010 7:48:19 AM PST
To: vanessa.schneider@pch.gc.ca
Subject: RE: media request

Minister Lunn is the elected official who provides oversight. I am only interested in speaking with him, unless a deputy minister or David Robinson is available for an interview.


      

bob.mackin@sunmedia.ca



From: "Bob Mackin"
Date: November 17, 2010 7:36:18 AM PST
To: 
codie.taylor@pch.gc.ca
Subject: media request

Hello,
Is Minister Moore available today for a short phone interview to talk about the delay in publication of the post-Games financial report by VANOC and to discuss when the post-Games report on federal investments in the Olympics and Paralympics will be published?

Sincerely,
Bob Mackin


From: codie.taylor@pch.gc.ca
Subject: Re: media request
Date: November 17, 2010 7:45:05 AM PST
To: Bob Mackin
Cc: jean-luc.benoit@pch.gc.ca

Hi Bob,


I understand that you have also contacted the department in this regard.
 They will provide the answers to your questions.


Thanks,



Codie Taylor

Press Secretary / Attachée de presse

Office of the Hon. James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official
Languages /
Cabinet de l’hon. James Moore, Ministre du Patrimoine canadien et des
Langues officielles
Ministère du Patrimoine canadien | Department of Canadian Heritage
Gatineau, Canada K1A 0M5

codie.taylor@pch.gc.ca
Téléphone | Telephone 819-997-7788
Télécopieur | Facsimile 819-994-1267

Gouvernement du Canada | Government of Canada







From: "Bob Mackin"
Date: November 17, 2010 7:49:15 AM PST
To: codie.taylor@pch.gc.ca
Subject: RE: media request

Minister Moore is the elected official who provides oversight. I am only interested in speaking with him, unless a deputy minister or David Robinson is available for an interview.



      

bob.mackin@sunmedia.ca



What prompted my recent attempts to interview Ministers Moore and Lunn? The woefully inadequate response from their Ministry's communications office.

From: genevieve.myre@pch.gc.ca on behalf of media@pch.gc.ca
Sent: Fri 22-Oct-10 3:06 PM
To: Bob Mackin
Cc: media@pch.gc.ca
Subject: Media call regarding final report on Olympic and Paralympic

Good afternoon,

The answer to your inquiry is attached below. Please confirm receipt of this email.

Thank you
Geneviève Myre
____________________

The Federal Secretariat's Final Report will be an overall synopsis of the Government of Canada's involvement in the Games.
The report is in its final stages of development and will be posted to the Canadian Heritage website in due time.
The attached Fact Sheet lists the Government of Canada's financial contributions to the 2010 Winter Games.


Service des relations avec les médias | Media Relations Service
Direction générale des communications | Communications Branch
Ministère du Patrimoine canadien | Department of Canadian Heritage
Gatineau, Québec CANADA K1A 0M5
media@pch.gc.ca
Téléphone | Telephone 819 994-9101
Sans frais | Toll-Free 1 866 569-6155 (au Canada seulement | In Canada Only)
Télécopieur | Facsimile 819 994-1444
Téléimprimeur (sans frais) 1 888 997-3123 | Teletypewriter (toll-free) 1 888 997-3123
Gouvernement du Canada | Government of Canada


From Bob Mackin on behalf of Bob Mackin
Date 22/10/2010 10:09 PM
To genevieve.myre@pch.gc.ca
Subject RE: Media call regarding final report on Olympic and Paralympic

Could you please define "due time?"

Does "due time" mean next week, next month, next year? If you can only give me a ballpark estimate (for example: end of October, mid-November or first week of December), then that would be reasonable.

I would prefer if you could attach an estimate to "due time." Otherwise, the reader/taxpayer does not know what "due time" means.


From: genevieve.myre@pch.gc.ca
Date: October 26, 2010 12:26:16 PM PDT
To: "Bob Mackin"
Subject: RE: Media call regarding final report on Olympic and Paralympic


Good afternoon,

The answer to your inquiry is attached below. Please confirm receipt of this email.

Thank you
Geneviève Myre
__________________

The Final Report is a compilation of material from over 30 federal departments and agencies and is a large undertaking.
The Government of Canada wants to ensure the report is accurate and complete before posting it. Therefore, no specific deadline has been set. We will contact you when the report is available.